Yesterday I had the joy and privilege of watching our fabulous Giants live in DC. This gave me my first opportunity to see this team live since 2008. That is a large drought!

I wanted to point out a couple of things as I watched our team that don’t appear in the normal stat line. The first thing about that game was it was weird. There was 9 walks and 3 HBP allowed by the Giants. That’s 12 free baserunners and they only scored 1 run. Amazing. Apparently that is the first time in the live ball era where a team has been issued 12 free bags and scored less than 2. Odd ball stat, but I like it.

There are a couple of fun quirks that I enjoyed about this team. Watching Tejada play third was interesting. HE MOVES A LOT! He is either stretching, practice swinging, or doing sprints. It was fascinating. Another interesting thing happened on every bunt attempt. He would sprint in to play the ball and when they pulled back or missed (they never actually bunted it to him) he would raise his finger and shake it. It was reminiscent of Mutumbo when he would block someone and shake his finger. It was genius and quite funny. You could tell he still has fun playing the game even if he is at third.

Another interesting thing to see was the fan’s reaction to Brian Wilson. Since he always comes into stadiums during commercial breaks, you never get to see how the crowd reacts.  The biggest reaction the fans had to anything was when he came out of the left field bullpen.  The place went nuts. All the Giants fans went crazy and the boos were ridiculous. I loved it. I guarantee that Wilson loves it too. Fun to watch.

The demographics in the stands were a little surprising to me. There were so many Giants fans. Holy cow! I didn’t feel like a minority at all. I have been to plenty of games in other stadiums and felt like a tool for wearing a Giants hat. Not here. I’d say that 25% of the stands were Giants fans. That isn’t an exact stat, but just try to prove me wrong. It was bizarre. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the number of fans. I’m not sure if they are all band wagon fans that jumped on after the World Series, but I like fans that have been through the hard times. Now, no Giant’s fan is a bad fan, it was just a weird feeling. It’s probably what it feels like being a Yankee or Red Sox fan, but it was a unique experience for me.

If you’re ever in the DC area, you should try to get out to the park. It’s a really fun place to watch a game. The fans are great, the stadium is very nice and the ticket prices are really good. We sat in the club level which may have been a mistake because I think I spoiled my wife. She loved the padded seats, the separate bathrooms and indoor “classy” food court.  Overall, it’s a great experience and I’d highly recommend it.

I also recommend that the Giants win every day.

(-JS)